


The Shout of My Name

by trblingthoughts



Category: TOMORROW X TOGETHER | TXT (Korea Band)
Genre: Accepting Someone from The Past, Angst, Bullying, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Memory Loss, Mention of Death, Mention of deep sea, Panic Attacks, Underage Smoking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-05 09:02:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25468231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trblingthoughts/pseuds/trblingthoughts
Summary: Yeonjun met a strange high-schooler when he was about to buy another pack of cigarettes on a certain night not knowing the stranger would slowly get his past memories back along with a painful remedy.
Relationships: Choi Yeonjun/Kang Taehyun
Comments: 1
Kudos: 22





	The Shout of My Name

**Author's Note:**

> hey so this is my first chaptered fic i wrote in non-native language so please bear with any grammatical errors and typos i might've accidentally written here. 
> 
> the story contains some heavy topics that may/may not be mentioned for several times. I hope you pay more attention to the tags i've written above.
> 
> kudos and comments are gonna be well-appreciated! <3

Body’s shuffling in sleep. Eyes shaking covered by the darkened eyelids. Dim lights blanketing the whole room sending the cold of the natural night wind to his shivered body. The nightmare comes again. Him being suffocated under water with hands trying to reach the edge of anything that could bring him to the surface. He’s crying hard but he doesn't feel anything as the water keeps on drowning him. He heard someone chanting a name. Hysterically, interspersed with sobs. Three syllables of a familiar name yet he can’t remember who owns it. He doesn't want to think about that now. His life is on the line. He’s about to let out his last breath until his eyes blinded by a white bright light.

And that’s when he regained his composure. He oftenly experiences that. The nightmare. But it felt more vivid night by night. He doesn’t know when it exactly started but he has been suffering from suffocation everytime he woke up almost every night. He doesn’t like it. It keeps repeating as if it wants him to remember everything that might have happened to him. That he had ever drowned in the deep sea asking for help yet it was only a certain boy’s shouting he received. What should he do about that? How could he remember it? He wants to get rid of it so bad.

Moments later he decided to unwrap himself from the blanket that was covering him earlier. He is drenched but it’s not by the annoying sweat someone usually is being drenched in after they had a nightmare, It almost feels like the water that drowned him in the dream. That is how vivid it is and it’s definitely starting to kill him slowly. He checked his jacket’s pocket to get his daily dose of smoke. Smoking has been his way to forget anything. To make him feel at ease all over again. It’s never a good idea. His friend keeps telling him to leave with them so he doesn’t feel alone and refrain using smokes to bear with what happened to him when in fact loneliness wasn’t the main problem here. He indeed needs a companion but to be free from this hauntingly repetitive nightmare is more important. He just doesn’t want to trouble anyone with the habit of him waking up exhaustedly, looking terrified and stuff. He is shit and no one wants to see that.

Putting up his slipper and jacket, he goes out to buy a pack of it. It’s the date of him running out of smokes. You won’t believe it but he always took notes of the dates he finally has to buy some packs more. It might sound strange but yes he lives alone. His adoptive parents are in his hometown now and to be here in Seoul for school is his own choice. It’s not like he got mistreated at home or that kind of thing but he knows and feels the need to get out of the family because at the end of the day things don’t get better for him. He’s still a burden and he doesn’t deserve to be in the family again when what he only received are money and facilities. No companion, no love, no things he was supposed to get when his real parents were still there. 

“Pathetic, right?” He asked his schoolmate after he finished talking about his decision to go to Seoul.

“No one actually said that, Yeonjun- _ah_.” The other scoffed. Hands clutching into some papers he put on his chest while leaning to the pole of the bus. “But yeah, no one said it’s a fun life either.”

Seunghun has been really honest to him. It’s the thing he loves about his best friend. He could comfort him in any honest way possible yet it doesn’t hurt him even a bit. Life’s hard and he doesn’t try to discredit any bad things in life just because it makes you sad and angry. It’s his life, It’s Yeonjun’s life, It’s up to Yeonjun for how he should feel about it but still he keeps making Yeonjun think that cigarettes are dangerous. His only flaw, Yeonjun once said.

His train of thoughts got interrupted when his visage stumbled upon the glass door of a convenience store. It’s past midnight on Friday. The thing he’s so glad about that he doesn’t need to care about waking up early the other day because it’s technically Saturday by now. A day off for him. He pushed himself into the heart of the store finding what he needed. Just right when his right hand was about to touch the only pack of cigarettes lying on its usual place, it’s also when someone lied their hand as well on it. The hand he touches right now is cold and a bit wet. It’s pale white as the wrinkled on his palm is a bit visible. Was it raining? He questioned himself but then Yeonjun lost it when that person’s hand quickly snatched the pack of cigarettes that made Yeonjun turn his head immediately meeting the frightened round orbs looking directly at him. 

There’s a boy dressed in his drenched uniform covered by a thin black jacket, hair wet, dark circles around eyes boldly stands out, and a little hint of shivers in his pale lips. This unknowingly broke Yeonjun’s heart. What is this kid doing at this hour, drenched in raindrops, and snatching a pack of cigarettes? The question itself sounds so wrong to him. 

“Give it to me.” Yeonjun said sternly, grabbing the boy’s wrist who was about to run away from him.

“I touched it first. It’s mine.” The boy answered shakily.

“At least take off your uniform first before you’re doing this. Now listen..” Yeonjun slowly gets himself closer to the boy. “You won’t be allowed to buy it with this kind of look. You better hand it to me now and get this next time without your soggy dusty uniform.”

Instead of giving it to Yeonjun, The boy stays still. It makes Yeonjun confused how the boy looks really frightened but seems like he observes something out of Yeonjun. He then decided to quickly reach for the pack the boy has been clutching for awhile. But maybe it really is the time he lost it because after one step he did, the boy ran off, throwing money on the cashier table, and successfully leaving the place. Yeonjun still tries hard to get it so he chases him. And to his disappointment, the boy has been swallowed by the dark.

This neighborhood is indeed lacking street lights. It’s like all the stores here are obligated to turn on their front lights to at least give the ways here some exposure. Well not every store obeys it by the way. Some are not doing it because they don’t want to waste their money for unnecessary electricity bills. It’s somehow scary. Yeonjun is not really fond of the dark as well and that’s why not once in his entire life living here he doesn’t faster his pace at night. It gives him anxiety for some reasons. He couldn’t tell it specifically but night times are risky. When things happened, he couldn’t see it clearly and he thinks it’s such an unfortunate thing because he can’t picture something for him to memorize. 

Memorizing has been his life’s homework since he was 10. He still feels so bitter about not remembering anything before his parents died around that age of him. Maybe a horrible thing happened to make him lose everything in his mind that day. He has lost so many important things. Physically and psychologically. All the things are uncertain until this day about what actually happened in the past. But anything it was, It’s what took him here. An adoptive son of a middle-class family who decided to have his own life clueless and lacks financially here in Seoul. And leaves all the things in the past remaining as a Maybe.

Walking home with empty hands is what usually pissed him off a lot. There is no other store opening at this hour near here. He knows he screwed up when he forgot to get cigarettes some times after school. Now he has nothing else to do but go home waiting for the morning to come and buy another pack he wants. The night was quiet. It pleased him for some moments until he heard a small voice of someone apologizing followed by a punch from somewhere. 

“There’s gangster activity around here? I never knew that.” Yeonjun mumbled to himself. But in fact, he really has no clue something like this is actually happening around here. He has been out some times around this month but never once he heard some people fight. He stopped on his track and walked towards the sound. 

It’s getting near to a certain dark alley when the sound got louder. A boy is dumped into the ground and getting some brutal punches from seems like the gang leader. Yeonjun can’t catch who is who but he then realized the uniform the bruised boy is using is the same as his. They’re literally going to the same school. His eyes went wide as the last blow was launched on the boy's left cheek. His face hit the ground hard producing a loud hiss of pain from his mouth. 

“See you on Monday, Kang Taehyun.” That’s the last thing he heard from the puncher before they actually leave the scene. Yeonjun hides himself behind the nearby wall so he could remain unnoticed. 

Yeonjun knows he is late. He isn't sure whether to help the boy or just let him be because from his experience of being beaten up by a gang of bullies in his middle school days, he never liked it when someone came to him acting like a hero. He doesn’t like someone showing their nose in his private business.

He turned his head when he heard something shuffling on his left side. It’s him. That is the boy he fought over a pack of cigarettes with earlier. He seems empty handed. Somehow gave him the clue that the pack of cigarettes wasn’t for himself. Now those eyes seem dropping. No stars were left in there, which he just realized they were there when they met at the store. He stares at him emptily yet it feels like he screams for help. But the thing comes out of his mouth is no way Yeonjun has predicted before,

“I hope you stay away from my business, Yeonjun _Sunbae_.”

* * *

It’s the Monday morning he actually never wished to come. After all he is just a mere highschooler who hates school days. School isn’t that fun except those times he’s meeting his friends and joking around with them. Any kind of companion has become a big deal ever since he moved here in Seoul. He dropped the thoughts when someone suddenly pulled him in his arm asking him to walk together to class. It’s Seunghun, his very first friend here. Never once in a day he doesn’t thank god for giving someone like him to be his friend. He was a very nice person for a stranger the first time he met him. He showed him around the school even asked him to come to his house and ate his mother’s signature dish on the first day of school. He owes him his life.

“You look..”

Yeonjun raised his brows when Seunghun started the conversation. Waiting for whatever bullshit he is about to say.

“...pathetic. Did you even sleep the past two days of the weekend?” Seunghun asked.

“Not really. I ran out of cigars on saturday and it made me feel like total shit.”

“That’s good, Yeonjun- _ah_. Better late than never!” He nearly shouted referring to the lack of smokes Yeonjun had consumed for several days. “You know.. You just need to turn it into a habit then you’re gonna be fine.”

“School’s starting, Seunghun- _ah_. I hope you start learning to mind your own business.” 

Yeonjun fastened his pace leaving Seunghun behind for him to receive shouts from the latter.

The day went by as it used to. Just had to do some sudden quizzes and group assignments which magically weren’t really stressing him out that day. Recess time took him to the school cafeteria to recharge himself from the exhausting first half of the entire school day. He starts eating his meals on his usual table with his friends. Small talks dominating the table with laughter sometimes following. He didn’t really pay any attention until an elbow suddenly poked his side making him pull up his head looking at the culprit.

“Finals are around the corner, Are you planning on joining some additional courses outside school?” One of his friends asked him directly. He’s trying to digest the situation first before finally ready to answer the question. 

“I don’t know. I haven’t found the best one for me.” he answered shortly and shoved in a spoonful of food to his mouth.

“Right? It’s hard to choose one. Not even one of the top tutoring places in town attracts me. This is horrible.” Seunghun from another side of the table exclaimed.

“Help?? Attract you said? God. Do you think this is a theme park or what?”

The shouts keep on continuing but Yeonjun’s focus isn’t there anymore after his eyes landed to the small figure with unhealed bruises on the face walking with a tray of food towards his friends’ table two meters away from his seat. And after that moment, things aren’t the same for Yeonjun.

* * *

He walked through the hallway after finishing his lunch, about to go to his next class. Lockers are there presenting themselves at the edge of the ways but his eyes are still focusing on someone with some books being held in his right arms. 

“Kang Taehyun, right?” Yeonjun walked up nearing the boy.

He noticed how the other’s eyes widened. The questionable light headache suddenly knocked into his head. But he brushed it off for now. The class’s almost starting and he doesn’t want to waste his time.

“I’m right, it’s you. The bruises and all proved me right. So..”

“ _Sunbae_ , I’ve told you to-”

“You still owe me a pack of cigarettes you stole from me that day.” Yeonjun asked casually with his hands sitting in his pants’ pocket and what he immediately received is a confused look from the younger. At least it's better than his little kitten frightened look he gave earlier.

“I literally paid for it. What do you mean ‘I stole’?” Protest came out from the thin lips that is ripped at one of the corner,

“Did you know how much I hate it when you didn’t say anything after illegally snatching that thing from me? Not even an apology?” He steps closer to him.

“I said I touched it first so It was mine. And why do I need to apologize when I did literally nothing wrong?”

“You’re a high-schooler.”

“You too??”

“I’m older than you.” And the silence happened. The stern voice that accidentally slipped out from Yeonjun shut the younger up in such a concerning manner. He saw it. How those eyes shake as if the sound he just heard triggered something in him. It’s the look when you’re facing what you fear.

The boy clenched his fist tight. Mouth is sealed perfectly. The look of surprised painted the overall of Yeonjun’s face. The boy broke his heart for the second time. He’s scared and Yeonjun can tell that. But what is it for? 

Yeonjun retreated himself some steps in hopes to give the younger some fresh air to breathe. He still doesn’t know what those stares could mean but somehow it seems familiar. It’s like he has known him for years for him to respect his current state. The headache kicks in once again. It hurts but he could still stabilize himself to stand. 

“Forget about that now. Go to your class.” 

He thinks what’s best for him is to leave the boy alone and give himself some moments to deal with his sudden headache.

**Author's Note:**

> let's hope i'm able to finish this fic tho hehe


End file.
